Posted
by
Soulskill
on Wednesday January 23, 2013 @03:37PM
from the does-not-involve-hondas dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Yesterday in a post at the White House website, the U.S. government announced that June 1-2 would be the National Day of Civic Hacking. 'Civic Hacking Day is an opportunity for software developers, technologists, and entrepreneurs to unleash their can-do American spirit by collaboratively harnessing publicly-released data and code to create innovative solutions for problems that affect Americans.' It will be a joint project with Random Hacks of Kindness, Code for America. Activities are being planned in many cities across the country, and you can also sign up to host your own event. It's nice to see the government use the word 'hacking' in a positive way, since most uses of the term these days involve malicious activity."

I know it's all perspective, and this is just mine, but I see more appropriate uses all the time now. Business rags like to talk about large tech companies having their hackathons and unknown devs "hacking" on their personal projects. The whole "maker" thing, which is (dare I say) trendy now, uses the word all the time. And we're well out of the 90's, when computers were transitioning from mystery AOL terminals to tools that almost everyone grew up using. I do feel like we're swinging back from the hollywoo

More like "stained by idiots who call themselves hackers jacking up other people's systems." The media didn't do it. It's every who gets busted doing stupid s**t with a script they downloaded because they think they're going to get into Jolie's pants.

"Liberate data that can inform better problem solving in every community."I propose we make a script that downloads all the research journals that we can, then makes massive online library of them that anyone can access. Oh wait. That doesn't end well.

That ends fine as long as you don't get access to the network that holds that data by breaking into a restricted access wiring closet, connecting your laptop and leaving it there, and then circumventing the attempts made to stop you. Then when you're caught and facing trial, don't kill yourself before you actually get through trial.

Roads are predominantly state projects. And though you might claim the feds help fund them, it's only because the feds confiscate via the income tax then give it back for compliance with federal initiatives.

I like roads too. The issue is what value are you getting for your money. I am very pleased if I get a great meal for $10. I expect the meal to be great if I pay $100. They build the roads argument makes sense if the government is only spending on building roads. I am sure that the federal government spending on road is not even a meaningful part of the federal budget. The question is are you getting the best value for your money? Would a smaller government give a greater value for the money? How about a la

What happens in a democracy, not just the US, but in ANY democracy (or republic) is that the masses will inevitably push for higher taxes and more welfare and raid the treasury for their own personal gain. Since democracy at its essence is a popularity contest, the politicians will push for higher and higher taxes and more welfare. When productivity is punished, productive people will go elsewhere (see France) when productive people go elsewhere, the country goes into a decline

What happens in a democracy, not just the US, but in ANY democracy (or republic) is that the masses will inevitably push for higher taxes and more welfare and raid the treasury for their own personal gain. Since democracy at its essence is a popularity contest, the politicians will push for higher and higher taxes and more welfare.

People have been saying this for a long time, it's why democracy was often limited to land owners, historically. In the US, basically the franchise has extended to all males since its inception, and the U.S. is hardly the most commie country in the world. But of course, it's hard to refute a proposition that simply states something is inevitable, since, after all, only a finite period has passed without it having any obvious evidence to support it.

When productivity is punished, productive people will go elsewhere (see France) when productive people go elsewhere, the country goes into a decline (such as the Roman Empire/USSR) and eventually collapses.

Did you know that your highschool social studies teacher was lieing to you?
"Republic" just means they don't have a "king". It doesn't mean the people are represented. It's just a coinsodence of language that the two words seem similar. You know how we usually get in a huff about a topic and everyone galvanizes along two sides and it's a big sort of debate thing? Yeah, back in the day, one of those issues was whether or not we should have a king or we should have a republic.

I would have thought, the even more paranoid, be careful out there, it's a trap would be even more relevant. FBI we need a list of all hackers, so we can decide which ones are the anarchistic criminals.

I truly believe in the 'pay it forward', random acts of kindness ideology. When I see someone obviously having difficulty somehow, I many times do stop and ask them if I can help. It usually doesn't cost me up anything but a little of my time, and it helps me feel better about myself afterwards. How coders can apply this to 'hacking' though, how can they do that?

Well, there was that time when I was a teenager in Manhattan. I walked up on a guy who was hitting and kicking a woman who was on the ground. I yelled at him to ''cut it out'', and before anything else happened, the woman gets up all angry and comes towards me. She was yelling something like, "Who the hell are you to talk to him like that, I should kick your ass..."

I threw up my hands and say, "Fine! Kill each other, see if I care!" and walk away. Ever since then I'm real careful about getting between

Wow, what's it like to live in constant fear? That paranoid distrusting nature that I find in so many of the older political types. It's probably born of cynasim or something, but people like you are just socially pesimistic. Like they've given up on people in general. I'd be more understanding if you had been truely hungry at some point, but everyone I've met with this attitude has been financially well off. I imagine the cut-throat mentality helps balance the budget. On the flip-side, everyone I've known

Self-professed hackers hacking for America will be put onto a watch list and hauled in for questioning any time anything untoward happens in the United Internet of America. Especially in the parts claimed by the corporate citizens of that great state.

I suppose I expect too much from my government in openly allowing hacking on one day without repercussions so long as it harms nobody. After all, it only has access to my national identity and tax records.

They use the term "hacking" when they mean "coding".
They use the term "Day" when they mean "weekend".
They hope to have an event in a city in "all 50 states and territories". Someone is bad at geography, math, grammar, or a mix of the 3.

I figure they are gonna steal the good ideas. You know, the ones they can get money for. I bet you wouldn't get a civil response if you showed them what their real problem is. Their inability to secure their low level infrastructure.